{"id":35618,"date":"2013-05-14T19:22:25","date_gmt":"2013-05-14T23:22:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/?p=35618"},"modified":"2013-05-14T19:24:13","modified_gmt":"2013-05-14T23:24:13","slug":"uav-launch-from-uss-ghw-bush-cvn77","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=35618","title":{"rendered":"UAV Launch from USS GHW Bush (CVN77)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"GHW<\/a><\/center><\/p>\n

VTWoody and the Navy PAO sent us some information on the unmanned aerial vehicle launch from the deck of the USS George HW Bush today;<\/p>\n

\"GHW<\/a><\/center><\/p>\n

USS GEORGE H.W. BUSH, at sea — The X-47B Unmanned Combat Air System demonstrator (UCAS-D) completed its first ever carrier-based catapult launch from USS George H.W. Bush (CVN 77) off the coast of Virginia today.<\/p>\n

\u201cToday we saw a small, but significant pixel in the future picture of our Navy as we begin integration of unmanned systems into arguably the most complex warfighting environment that exists today: the flight deck of a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier,\u201d said Vice Adm. David Buss, commander, Naval Air Forces, the Navy’s \u201cAir Boss\u201d.<\/p>\n

The unmanned aircraft launched from the deck of George H.W. Bush at 11:18 a.m. It executed several planned low approaches to the carrier and safely transited across the Chesapeake Bay to land at Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Md., after a 65-minute flight. <\/p>\n

Buss called the launch a “watershed event” in naval aviation and said he expects that decades from now, a future “Air Boss” will have a picture of the X-47B launching from Bush behind his or her desk just as he has a picture of aviation pioneer Eugene Ely’s first-ever landing on the deck of a ship in 1911 behind his desk today.<\/p>\n

Completing another important first for the UCAS-D program, the team demonstrated the ability to precisely navigate the X-47B within the controlled airspace around an aircraft carrier at sea and seamlessly pass control of the air vehicle from a \u201cmission operator\u201d aboard the carrier to one located in the Mission Test Control Center at NAS Patuxent River for landing.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe flight today demonstrated that the X-47B is capable of operation from a carrier, hand-off from one mission control station to another, flight through the national airspace, and recovery at another location without degradation in safety or precision,\u201d said Matt Funk, lead test engineer for the Navy UCAS program.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Videos of the launch and landing below the jump
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